


How We Break and Re-Build

by ifyouwereamelody



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crystal Catacombs (Avatar), Episode: s02e20 The Crossroads of Destiny, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27437008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifyouwereamelody/pseuds/ifyouwereamelody
Summary: It had never been a choice.Not really.Zuko makes his decision in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se, and it changes him more than he ever could've expected.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 73
Collections: Zutara Spooky Angst Challenge 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SO THIS SPIRALLED. In case anyone wasn't already aware, I have legit zero self-control, and what was originally going to be a 500-1000 word angst challenge fic has turned into a full-on 4.5K story complete with ghost!Katara and a (somewhat abridged) Zuko redemption arc. I don't even know, guys, it just happened.
> 
> For anyone who read Victory Is a Flash of Blue, a Twist of Red, this is that but with a whole lot more tagged on. The name just didn't feel right anymore.

It had never been a choice.

Not really.

He could never have followed through on that miniscule kernel of _maybe_ , handed to him so easily by a girl who had no reason to believe he would treat it with the care it deserved. That was her mistake, to think he might have been swayed, to think he might have taken another option.

It had never been a choice.

This is what Zuko tells himself as he watches the Avatar fall, as something tight and brittle in him — he would never think to call it _hope_ — snaps clean in two.

This is what he tells himself as the waterbender ( _Katara_ , a voice whispers in the back of his mind) lets out a cracking cry of grief and flies into battle, as she flings out blows deadly with righteous, agonising fury, as she pushes and turns and, just for a moment, leaves a gap in her guard—

She’s struck head-on, her chest rendered a mess of bloody burn by his sister’s fire, her face frozen in shock as she wavers where she stands.

This fracture isn’t nearly so clean. This time, Zuko doesn’t snap. The light drains from her face, and he _splinters._

She falls, and he splinters.

She lies still, and—

And he’d thought he was marked before.

_Maybe you could be free of it._

Never. Not now.

Now the stain has seeped right through to the marrow of him. He’s blemished to the bone.

Until this moment, his ribs have always held strong; solid bars to that cage he so often finds himself slamming shut to keep his weaknesses at bay.

Now, though… Now, they are ladder rungs. The horrors that aren’t meant to touch him — let alone live in him — come climbing, clawing up through his chest, eager spirits of smoke laced with blood and bile that surge into the back of his throat and coat his tongue with acid. He needs to spit. He needs to heave and retch and vomit until the soft blue of her voice is purged from him, until the loss of this girl that he never actually knew doesn’t feel like it’s turning him inside out. But she’s already in him, streaming helplessly through his veins. No amount of choking is going to sluice him clean.

Besides, Azula’s watching.

She must see it as he swipes at the wetness on his face, and a vicious light comes into her eyes. He doesn’t know what it is, exactly — he’s never been able to separate the twisted threads of anger and triumph that pull his sister taut — but he knows she’ll find a way to make him pay for this, this forbidden sense of ruin.

Not that it matters. Nothing Azula throws at him will hit its mark. Someone else has already paid his real penance for him.

The waterbender ( _Katara_ , more persistent now) lies over by the channel that winds its way through the catacombs, a flash of blue and a twist of blackened red at the very edge of his vision, lingering in his periphery. She’ll stay there from now on, he knows. He’ll never be free of her.

Except she’s not _her_ anymore, is she? She’s just… gone.

They’ve won.

This is what he wanted.

This is a victory.

Keep thinking it, learn it by rote, until it doesn’t feel like a lie anymore.

‘Come, brother.’

He follows Azula on command, his feet running independent of the wreck that’s collapsing through his mind. As they leave, he almost looks back towards the waterbe—

He almost looks back.

He _needs_ to look back.

He doesn’t look back.

* * *

He was right about her staying with him.

She appears the first night he’s back home, as he’s trying and failing to free his mind of her enough to sleep. Silent, burnt, she stands shrouded in the shadows that linger in the corners of his room, just visible enough that he can make out the death-throes of shock on her face.

He spends the night beholden to the sound of her blood dripping onto the tiles, the shaking of her breath, and sleep is further away than it’s ever been.

He’s not sure at what point she disappears, but when the sun rises, he’s alone. Perhaps it should be a relief. Perhaps he should be glad to be rid of her. But then something about his empty room feels grey and grieving, cold and quiet, as if she’s lost all over again and he—

Maybe he’s lost too.

Of course, it’s not like he feels any more _found_ when she reappears later that day. Or again that night. Or again the next morning.

‘What do you want? It’s not like I can change anything, leave me alone!’

Mute as she is, he knows that she can hear him; something in her brow flickers at his words, but otherwise she remains still and unflinching in the face of his anger.

‘It’s not my fault! I didn’t do this to you, okay? This was your own fucking fault, you— You never should’ve—’

_You never should’ve trusted me._

He can’t say it.

‘You never should’ve tried to fight her. You never should’ve _been_ there in the first place — I mean, how fucking stupid do you have to be to get caught like that? You got caught, and you tried to fight when you should’ve run, and now you’re dead. It’s not my fault.’

Nothing. She says nothing, she gives him nothing, she _is_ nothi—

Vomit rushes up his throat, shocking in its abruptness, and he finds himself on his knees before her as he empties himself of the venom that was sitting on his tongue. He’s glad for the burn, the pain of it. It feels like exactly what he deserves.

She’s with him more often than not after that, hovering at the corners of his vision when she isn’t right in his eye line, and he doesn’t want to notice but he _does_ notice that over time her face is slowly morphing from its fixed state of shock; her expressions start coming bold and unhidden, a wind gauge to tell him exactly which way she blows in response to anything and everything he does. She’s the worst mirror he could ever have asked for.

When she’s there, he does everything he can to make her go away.

He shouts.

He throws things.

He considers firing at her, but then his eyes catch on the blackened shreds of her chest, the charred fabric from her tunic that’s been burnt into her skin... and he can’t bring himself to raise his hands.

When she’s not there, he— He aches. He shrinks. He echoes.

‘Are you there?’

‘Are you going to come back?’

‘Come back.’

‘Waterben— Katar—’

It feels as though pieces of him are falling away, flaking off as the demons in him rattle at the bars of their cage, until he’s left raw and weeping and unrecognisable.

Life is unbearable when she’s around, and meaningless when she isn’t.

The only thing that seems to clear his head, even just a little, is walking. He goes for long, rambling walks across the slopes of the volcanos that birthed their islands, kicking up ash as he meanders aimlessly through the unearthly terrain. Everything ricochets up here, every sound resonating louder and closer than it should through the eerie silence , every feeling bouncing back and forth in the hollow of his body until it finds some small crack by which to escape into the shadowed air. Above him, dark ridges of hardened lava stand tall and brooding, sharp edges honed silver under the light of the moon; he only ever comes once twilight has passed, once the itching energy of the sun has left him.

And she follows. She seems more solid at night, more saturated even as the rest of the world is made monochrome.

‘Why are you here?’ he asks her. Something skitters out in the dark, something small and quick, but all she does it quirk an eyebrow at him. He sighs, feels the splinters in him shift so that they press harsher into his gut, and walks on.

Her presence only becomes more obtrusive as the days go on. Every decision, every crossroads that he comes to, she’s there. Reminding him. Haunting him. And each time he catches her eye in a council meeting, or a tribunal, or an audience with his father, he feels a little more sickened by the work that he’s contributing to.

‘You don’t understand. I have to do this. This is where I’m meant to be, this is my home. Stop _looking at me_ like that.’

It’s clear that she doesn’t believe what he’s saying any more than he does.

* * *

The first time she talks, he thinks it’s his mind playing tricks on him.

(As if everything about this isn’t his mind playing tricks on him.)

‘Fix it.’

He jerks up from where he’s lying, the bed sheets twisting around his feet as he turns to find her in the dark.

‘What?’

Silence. She shrugs like _never mind_ , and he finds a book on the table next to his bed to hurl in her direction before kicking the sheets out from around his feet and lying back down. The drip, drip, drip of her blood on the tiles starts up again.

‘You’re doing that on purpose. Go away. Let me sleep.’

Three days pass before she speaks again.

‘Fix it.’

His hand spasms on the brush, leaving the missive he was writing splattered with ink.

‘Fix what, exactly? What’s that meant to mean?’

She tilts her head, brow furrowed as if contemplating his question, as if he’s a vaguely interesting puzzle that’s been laid before her.

‘I think it means whatever you think it means.’

And now that she’s started speaking, now that the dam has opened, it’s like she’s decided to become narrator to his life. She offers thoughts on anything, _everything_.

‘That’s not how you spell _loquacious_ , you know.’

‘If you don’t fall asleep soon, you’ll still be awake when the sun starts to rise.’

‘You’ve stopped talking in council meetings — why is that?’

She has a lot to say, he learns. Except, of course, when he has questions.

‘Why now? Why did you choose to start talking now?’

‘Maybe I didn’t choose. Maybe you decided you were ready to listen.’

‘Fucking spirits, can you just—’

‘Just what?’

‘Make sense! Make sense for _once_! Tell me why you’re here, tell me what you want from me!’

And she stares at him long and hard, until the room glows green around her and panic starts to work its way into his bloodstream.

‘This isn’t about what I want. What do _you_ want?’ Then— ‘Fix it.’

As always.

He’s noticed that some days she’s less clear than others. Some days, it’s like his mind remembers that he never had the chance to study the lines of her face, the rhythms of her speech, and she’ll appear to him somehow _off_. Wrong in some way that he can’t pinpoint; her hair perhaps a shade too dark, the shape of her nose not quite right. An echo that’s reverberated for so long it’s become warped.

Other times, though, he knows that he’s seeing her as she really was, and those days are somehow both the hardest and the easiest to suffer. Seeing her this close to life, so real and vibrant, sends shame shuddering through him like the aftershocks of an earthquake, but... Well, it’s better than the thought that he might be forgetting what she looks li— _looked_ like. 

‘Will you stop doing that?’

It’s been a long day. He’s _so_ nearly done with reading the reports that he needs to get through. But when he’s sitting at his desk, it puts the wound on her chest right at his eye level, and now she’s standing across from him and it’s _all he can focus on_.

‘I’m not doing anything. I’m here because of you. You know that.’

‘I just— I can’t look at it. You. I can’t—’

He can’t bear it right now. Every report that he reads celebrates another atrocity, more death and chaos and destruction inflicted as the Fire Nation takeover gains traction and speed, and his mind is too shot full of debris to deal with this too.

‘If it’s distracting you, it’s because something in you thinks that you need to see it. Maybe it’s time you accepted that and started looking properly.’

He scoffs, but it’s half-hearted at best.

‘Look at me.’

The report in front of him swims in the lamplight, but he wills himself to read on in the vague hope that she’ll give up if he just ignores her for long enough. Then she’s suddenly right next to him, perched on his desk practically on top of the scroll, and ignoring her becomes impossible. Her voice is louder now, more forceful than it’s ever been before, like she’s suddenly done with waiting for him to come to whatever conclusion it is that she’s expecting him to reach.

‘Zuko. Look at me.’

His jaw aches at the gritting of his teeth, desperate as he is to hold his gaze averted, but there’s a hard, heated imperative about her that he just can’t keep held at bay anymore. Slowly, his head lifts, turns, and there she is before him; she’s clear today, all crisp edges and azure, and the red of her blood stands out startlingly bright in the dark of the room.

His chest quakes as the demons throw themselves against his ribs, but she just nods.

‘Good. Now fix it.’

And suddenly he’s up, slamming his palm down against the desk and snarling in her face, pushed right up close so that anything below her neck is tucked away out of his field of vision.

‘I _can’t_ fix it! How am I meant to fix it? It’s not like I can— can bring you back or anything.’

She’s unfazed by the aggression of his proximity.

‘No, it’s not.’

‘So what do you want me to do? What the fuck do you want from me, why are you here? Why won’t you fucking _tell_ me anything — just tell me what you want and I’ll do it, then you can go off and do whatever the fuck it is dead people do and I can get on with my _fucking life_! Just because you don’t have one anymore it doesn’t mean I’m going to let you ruin mine.’

He swings away from her, hand grabbing at the hair at the nape of his neck as if the pain of it might keep him grounded somehow, might keep him from submitting to those other pains that threaten to overwhelm him as the splinters jab and the demons howl. Behind him, he hears her toss out a frustrated huff from the back of her throat.

‘I _can’t_ tell you what to do because you won’t accept it until you’ve thought of it yourself. So _think_ , Zuko. Use your head for something other than moping and _think_ — what can you do to make sure this never happens again, to make sure you don’t end up with any more blood on your hands or bodies on your conscience? You can carry on sitting here and reading your reports like a good little Fire Prince, knowing that you’re playing a part in all that damage and bloodshed that makes you feel like you can’t stand properly, or you can stop wallowing around like a helpless child and _fix it_.’

Neither of them speaks for a moment, and then her voice comes quieter; less reprimand and more reassurance.

‘You know what you need to do. You know because I know. Or— Huh, is it that I know because you know? Well, whatever way you put it—’

His fists clench.

‘Yes, I _know_ , okay? I— I know, I just...’ And then he’s wilting, deflating down from the robust height of his anger to collapse into something soft and pathetic. ‘I can’t. Not right n— Not yet. I’m not— Maybe. Maybe someday, but... not yet.’

Silence falls. He braces for the derision, the disgust of her verdict, like a man slated for execution.

‘Okay.’

It’s jarring, _impossible_ , this simple acknowledgement, and the surprise of it tugs him back to face her.

‘Okay?’

‘Okay.’ She shrugs, kicks her legs back and forth where she sits. ‘It’s not like I can force you to do anything you aren’t ready for.’

For a moment, all he can do is stand rooted where he is, stunned by her willingness to accept his failings. Then haltingly, almost cautiously, he picks his way across the room and leans himself against the desk next to her, arms crossed over his chest as he goes back through the last few minutes in his mind.

‘Do you really think I only use my head for moping?’

A snort sounds from next to him, and he finds her with a hand pressed over her mouth, the corners of her eyes crinkled in mirth.

‘Are you seriously laughing at me right now?’

She shakes her head, bringing her hand down away from her face. Is this the first time he’s seen her smile? It must be — he’d have remembered the glow of something that bright amongst the black backdrop of everything else.

‘Actually,’ she counters, ‘I think you’re laughing at yourself. And I reckon that’s probably a good step in the right direction.’

* * *

The pressure of the tide washing over him builds with each passing day, the waves rising and rushing and rising still further in their relentless onslaught, never stopping, never breaking. Most days, now, Zuko feels as though he can barely breathe for the way they pin him down, and the waterbender — for all her talk about not being able to force him into anything — only urges them faster, higher, heavier.

Then, one day, brought unknowingly by the last person Zuko could ever have expected, comes the crash to shore.

‘Zuko. Zuko, calm down for a second. Hey, look, _breathe_ , you can’t do anything in this state.’

‘But he’s going to burn— He’s— The Earth Kingdom, he’s—’

‘I know. I know, I heard.’

The world is spinning, blurring into streaks of blue and red as she stands in front of him, and here come the demons, bursting free of his chest and running riot through his body until he feels himself crumpling to his knees beneath them.

‘Don’t fight them, Zuko. The damage they wreak isn’t real; they aren’t here to harm you.’

It’s all he can do to gasp out a response past the grasping of their mangled fingers around his throat.

‘Well, it sure as fuck feels like it.’

‘It’s a lie, told to you by your father so that he could turn you into the thing he wanted you to be. They’re just another part of you. You’ve kept them caged up for too long, and they’ve grown hungry and desperate so now they might be a little wild, but just because it hurts doesn’t mean they’re trying to hurt you. Sometimes pain is good.’

He wants to jeer, to scoff, to tell her that if she could feel what he’s feeling right now then there’s no way she’d ever say it was a good thing. But what comes out instead is—

‘I can’t stay here.’

With it, the screaming in his head quietens.

‘I can’t be a part of this.’

The grasp around his throat loosens, some of the smoke dissipates from his lungs.

‘I have to stop it.’

‘Yes. Yes, you do.’

He can breathe again. Not fully, not deeply, but enough.

‘What do I do? Where— How do I— Where do I go?’

And, finally, she tells him. She tells him of her brother, and the young earthbender, and the seedling plans for rebellion on the Day of Black Sun that had started sprouting before their group reached Ba Sing Se. She tells him of her father, the Water Tribe chieftain whose whereabouts they had just discovered, whom she allowed her brother to visit instead of going herself; one of her last acts of kindness before she was flung into the underground prison that would become her final resting place.

‘If you find the fleet, you’ll find them. I’m sure of it.’

The gravity of it all is a lot to take. The— He’s not really sure he can call them _demons_ anymore, but he doesn’t know how else to refer to them... The _beings_ wander soft and coaxing in his bloodstream, stroking along his spine and warming the space behind his eyes, and all at once he feels tears stinging.

The waterbender kneels in front of him, reaching out slowly to touch the wet track running down his cheek, her fingers tracing the same path across his scar that they had in the crystal caves all that time ago, and his face burns like she’s branded him.

But then, hasn’t she?

‘Zuko... Say my name.’

His head jerks up to look at her, and he sees the same anguish on her face that he feels in himself.

‘What?’

‘You’ve never said it. You _know_ it, I know you do, but you’ve never said it. You’ve not even let yourself think it since the catacombs.’ Her smile is watery, but her words are sure. ‘It’s time. Say my name.’

It is. It’s time. His lungs hold clear and free as he fills them as far as he can, opens himself as wide as he’ll go, and breathes it out with the last of the smoke:

‘ _Katara_.’

And her arms are around him, pulling him close, closer, closest into her, her fingers gripping tight at his robes as he sobs and breaks against her shoulder, and it hurts so much more than he could have possibly imagined but—

‘I am so sorry. It was my fault. I thought I didn’t have a choice but I did and I made the wrong one and you died because of it and... I’m so sorry, Katara.’

—but she was right: the pain is good. The breaking is the re-building.

Time slips by. Slowly, the wracking of his sobs calms, and after a few moments longer of resting against her shoulder, he pulls away from her to find her face streaked with tears just as his is. But she’s smiling with it, shining clear through him, and her voice is strong.

‘Let’s go.’

* * *

The welcome that Zuko receives from Katara’s brother is less then effusive, and all at once he’s glad that he took her recommendation to wait until he could catch the other boy alone, away from her father and the rest of the soldiers.

‘ _You_.’

The boy drops instantly into a fighting stance, his hand flying to the sword at his back before halting on its way as Zuko lifts his hands in surrender. Sokka frowns, guarded and mistrustful.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Tell him the truth,’ Katara urges, and her eyes are fixed on her brother as she stands by Zuko’s side.

‘I— I’ve defected. I’ve left the Fire Nation. I have information, and I want to join you to—’

‘ _What?_ You want to _join_ us, that’s what you’re going with? And you expect me to believe that, after everything you’ve done. You—’ Sokka’s voice cracks. ‘You killed Aang, you killed my _sister_!’

Zuko’s raised hands lift that bit higher.

‘I didn’t. I swear, I—’ A prod to his ribs from beside him, a nudge in the other direction. ‘I didn’t, but... it was because of me.’

‘So you admit it! And you still think I’m going to trust you? Give me one good reason why I should even listen to what you have to say.’

He doesn’t need Katara to help him with this one — the answer comes to him fully-formed without him needing to think.

‘Because she hasn’t left me since.’

Sokka stalls, his breath catching audibly, brow furrowing in uncertainty even as the glare holds firm on his face.

‘You— Why would you— I don’t—’

And Katara must realise how on the edge Zuko is, how close he’s coming to calling this whole endeavour as futile, because she steps past him towards Sokka and lays a hand on the other boy’s chest. Zuko sees her shoulders relax as she gazes up at her brother for a moment, whispering something Zuko can’t make out, and then her eyes are bright and shimmering when she turns back away.

‘Don’t worry. He’ll listen.’

The Water Tribe boy doesn’t shift under his sister’s touch, doesn’t pay her words any acknowledgment. But something in his face yields as he stares Zuko down, and after a second he huffs out a breath that Zuko’s heard before on Katara’s lips.

‘You get _one chance_ to explain.’

At Zuko’s nod, Sokka gestures him along the path that leads around the cliffside, but as Zuko goes to follow he’s stopped by a hand against his arm. He turns to find Katara before him with a strange, sad smile on her face, and suddenly he knows, without either of them needing to say it, that he won’t be seeing her again after this.

The thought chokes him, his resolve wavering at the idea of being alone, without her, once more. But, as always, she knows exactly what’s running through his mind, and she soothes the rushing ache that’s swelling in his gut.

‘You can do this. You can be this.’

Zuko shakes his head, his eyes burning.

‘It’s too late, though. It should’ve been earlier, it should’ve been before—’

‘I know. But there’s no point living for what could’ve been. You’re here now.’ Her hand finds the back of his neck and she pulls herself into him, pressing her lips to his scar, laying her cheek against his, whispering soft into his ear. ‘Make it count.’

Then she steps back from him, her chest whole and unbroken, the smile still resting gentle on her lips as she nods him along the path in her brother’s wake. Feeling something quivering low in his throat, there in that notch between his collarbones, Zuko swallows down a kind of grief that tastes entirely different, entirely more real and worthwhile than the pain that had burned through him back in the catacombs, and he keeps his eyes on Katara for as long as he can before turning away.

When he reaches the curve in the road, when he looks back, she’s gone. His chest pangs, and for a moment he stares at the spot where she’d been, committing her to his memory as clearly and completely as he can.

Then he tilts his face up towards the sky, takes a deep breath, and keeps on walking.


	2. Author's note

This is literally just a placeholder to make it clear that the fic was updated with a whole lot more story, but breaking it up into chapters didn't feel right so I've just edited it all into the first chapter. If you've hit this point, you've come too far!

**Author's Note:**

> I've added a second chapter to this literally just as a way of making it clear that it's been updated. No need to read on because there's no more to this!
> 
> Let me know your thoughts — this is the first time I've written anything in this vein, so I'm keen to know how it's come across!


End file.
